


No Love like Your Love

by TheLastGoodGoldfish



Series: and sure my love would come along [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Future Fic, LV AU WEEK, i dont know, melodrama?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 19:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18037226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastGoodGoldfish/pseuds/TheLastGoodGoldfish
Summary: Logan and Veronica, later.LoVe AU Week: Day One - "Come Back to Me" / "Always"





	No Love like Your Love

_Come back to me_.

Veronica wakes with the words running through her head. Part of a dream, most likely, if she was sleeping deeply enough to dream. Something about Logan. It’s entirely possible; she checks the clock on the wall and sees that an hour has passed since she drifted off for an impromptu afternoon nap atop (a still out-cold) Logan.

 _Come back to me_ —her drowsy mind repeats, turns it over once, twice, then dismisses it as nothing. Logan’s right there, couldn’t possibly be any more _back with her_ , except that he’s asleep.

Veronica stretches her neck to work out the kinks. Logan Echolls is, by and large, a first class mattress, but he’s a little bulky. Most importantly though, he’s a _gracious_ mattress: he barely bitched about it at all, when she abandoned the other couch to curl up on top of him like a cat in a patch of sunlight, interrupting his reading before promptly passing out. _Dubliners_ sits spine up on the living room floor beside them, and Logan’s breathing is deep and rhythmic beneath her.

They’re on vacation sort of. One of Logan’s friends from high school owns this place—a beautiful lake house at South Tahoe—but it’s understood that Logan can use the house whenever he likes. Veronica’s been up here half a dozen times in the three years since they got together. This weekend’s the first time this season, though: it’s January now, and snow’s been light, but there’s a nice dusting of powder, and Veronica has but to turn her head to watch the delicate white flakes drift down onto the deck. If she got up and crossed the room, she could see the icy water and a shoreline of frosted evergreens, almost too picturesque to process. She’ll say this for Dick Casablancas: he can pick a house.

Snow is still something of a novelty to Veronica.

She grew up in deserts: Tucson, Tulsa, Phoenix, Vegas... There was a summer in Ann Arbor and a few months in Minneapolis, but her mother (and her mother’s slew of unimpressive boyfriends) seemed to gravitate to the heat. Then college in sunny Neptune, grad school at Stanford, and a career that kept her moving in some of the world’s hottest climates, excepting that year in New York and the winter spent covering demonstrations in Moscow.

It’s the third in a five day excursion, just her and Logan in this vast, well-appointed house. There’s a fully stocked kitchen, TV, fireplace, and plenty of room for the dogs to wander. So far, it’s been two and a half days of bliss: they work and fuck and cook good food; take the dogs out and watch movies in the evenings. Logan will want to snowboard tomorrow.

Maybe their workaholic inclinations make it impossible for either of them to “disconnect” entirely, but slogging through a scientific journal on the newest super-virus for background is a lot more tolerable when there’s a view of the lake and a half-dressed ex-Naval aviator making lasagna within reaching distance.

Veronica shifts again. Pokes her chin into Logan’s chest, fidgets with the collar on his thick wool sweater, and waits to see if he’ll stir. He doesn’t.

Last winter when they were here, he asked her to marry him.

No, okay, not exactly that.

He asked her if she wanted to get married. He didn’t have a ring or get down on one knee or anything. He just asked her if she wanted that, like he might ask her if she wanted tacos for dinner.

Except no, he’d been more serious and earnest than that, asking. In the bedroom they always use here, after a really outstanding round of morning sex, with snowflakes on the window and coffee brewing in the next room.

“Would you want to get married?” Quiet and sweet, like he can be with her. His voice gets low, tender; it makes her ache. A husband, a dozen boyfriends, a roster of romances and flings who promised her the moon—no one’s ever loved her like Logan.

She was genuinely surprised, when he asked. “You want to get _married_?”

“I don’t know,” with a shrug of his bare shoulders. “Yes?”

“ _Why_?”

He’d laughed; didn’t even take offense, which was almost enough to make her change her mind on the spot.

But they’d both been married before: marriages that ended as ignominious flops. Worse in her case—she understands that Logan and Lindsay parted on reasonably amicable terms—but all the same. She couldn’t picture going through all that again. She already did the big fairytale Church wedding with the puffy white dress and the tiara-veil (Jack’s family was very traditional). She’d felt silly dressing up like a virginal princess at the age of thirty-two; she’d feel downright comical doing it a decade later. Calling up her gal-pals and asking them to pause hectic careers and family schedules to wear generic teal dresses and be _bridesmaids?_ Her seventy-year-old father having to walk her down the aisle again?

“I’m not saying we rent out the MacArthur and televise it, Mars,” Logan said, like he could read her mind, “But putting it on paper could make some things easier.”

“Well when you put it _that_ way.” She traced a finger down his chest, trying to conceive of something tactful to say. She gave that up pretty quickly, though: “I don’t want to get married again, Logan.” She hadn’t been able to look at him when she said it, but she felt him go still beside her. Only for a moment, and then he resumed the slow, steady circles his thumb drew on the small of her back.

“Okay.”

And when she shifted to look up at him, he was relaxed and sincere. Okay. He pulled a face at her and it made her ache again, but happy.

“Still love me?” she’d teased.

He kissed the tip of her nose. Shrugged, beleaguered: “I guess,” and laughed when she bit him.

 

 

She extricates herself from the couch and the slumbering Logan. Veronica has no recollection of pulling the soft plush throw-blanket over them—that must’ve been his handiwork. She arranges it back around him, then yawns, stretches, and wanders down to the basement level first floor to check on the dogs. Maggie and Goat are resting peaceably in their beds in the den, enjoying a vacation of their own. When the snow stops, Veronica will take them out.

The house is still, silent, as she heads back up to the kitchen. Puts on coffee and collects her tablet to work at the table.

She skims e-mails but is mostly unproductive. She holds a mug of hot coffee between her hands, habitually clinking her ring against the china as her attention drifts across the room to the giant window and the falling snow outside.

 

 

 _Never again_ , she vowed the day she finally signed the divorce papers. Like swearing off alcohol during a hangover: _never a-goddamn-gain_. 

No more chasing picket fence fantasies. Normalcy, stability? Overrated, and mostly fake anyway.

She’d held pretty true to the promise, too. Took a nice freelance contributor gig in Spain and had two fleeting but lovely romances there. Then there was a year in London when she thought she might try photography-sans-journalism (till the boredom nearly killed her) and then back at the Los Angeles desk to be closer to her dad in Neptune. During that period, there’d been Jackson, Dan, and Mike in succession—each relationship ending when they started expecting serious progression. Mike got so far as to ask her to move in, and she had almost considered it. He would have made a good partner, but there was something painfully familiar about the relationship: nice at the beginning, comfortable. They had compatibility, a solid repartee. And yet after months and months, Veronica had never been able to engage with him on any level other than surface. They could banter, sure, but Mike never seemed to realize that was _all_ they could do.

So they split and, a few months later, Logan happened. Just waltzed on into her life like he belonged there.

On their fourth date, she told him about the week she spent alone in a motel room in Vegas while her mom went on a bender. A month after that, he was tagging along for a four-day work trip to Paris. It hadn’t felt fast or serious. It just _was_. Abruptly, there was someone they each wanted to do everything with, and that was it.

 

 

“I got married on the rebound,” Logan had told her, very early. It was always easy for him to talk about Lindsay. “Surprisingly? Not the best idea.”

“Yeah, I’m _shocked_ that didn’t work out for you.” They were on a date, Dim Sum on North Broadway. Logan gestured a lot with the chopsticks.

“My ex and I had just had this long, exhausting break up. We had a lot of problems—both of us... there were substance abuse issues, and—we both worked too much...” ( _Carrie was unfaithful and a drug addict, but real conversations about Carrie—and Lilly—wouldn’t come till much later) “..._ so when I met Lindsay, she was the exact opposite. She taught yoga and fell asleep after half a glass of Chardonnay. I figured since there weren’t any of the problems I’d had with my ex, we’d be perfect. So we kind of rushed into everything.”

“Didn’t work, huh.”

“We had _nothing_ in common.”

“I mean— _half_ a glass of Chardonnay? You _probably_ should’ve seen that coming.”

“Lasted less than three years, and I was deployed for about a third of that.”

 

 

 _Tap, tap, tap_ goes the ring on the coffee mug. It’s almost four, and the snow has stopped. She’ll let Logan rest a little longer before she starts pestering him. They haven’t decided on dinner yet.

 

 

There was no puffy white dress, no tulle, tiara, roses, or DJ, when she went ahead and married Logan. As predicted, it was mostly a matter of paperwork, but they did it at the Neptune courthouse, and her dad was there.

Logan never tried to talk her into it or anything. He didn’t even raise the marriage subject again. In fact when, last summer, Veronica had decisively stated, “Logan, I think we should get married,” he’d just rolled his eyes and carried on with his business, brushing his teeth. “What? I _do._ ”

He spit into the sink and asked, “Is this about that stupid article?”

“No,” she said, defensive. She folded her arms and leaned against their bathroom doorframe, pleased with neither Logan’s accusation nor the overall lack of enthusiasm in his response. She had never proposed to anyone before and had expected to be taken a little more seriously.

Logan threw her a skeptical look, then resumed brushing.

“It’s not about the stupid article,” she insisted. “I don’t care about the stupid article.”

“So that wasn’t a heated e-mail I saw you writing to Bob Severino earlier?”

Robert Severino of _Vanity Fair_ had written a profile on Veronica. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, primarily focusing on her work following a recent senatorial campaign, except at one point, for no discernable reason, Severino included the line: “ _Mars, who was married to former CNN anchor Jack Roan between 2019 and 2023_...”

“I don’t care about the stupid article,” she said again, and it was true. Kind of. She cared in the sense that it was an idiotic line— _sexist, too, what did her ex have to do with the photos she took on Senator Gracio’s campaign?_ —but she didn’t _truly_ care that they brought up her marriage. Her initial reaction had even been amusement: they might just as well have mentioned that Derek Keener took her to senior prom.

But then after a few days, the phrase started to grate on her. Jack’s name didn’t belong there. It was only there because of some piece of paper that said they’d been married, and the paper wasn’t even _valid_ anymore. Frankly, Veronica was of the opinion that there didn’t need to be _any_ other name included in an analysis of her _damn career_ , but as long as there was going to be one...

Then the more she’d thought about it, the more she’d started to realize that there were all kinds of ways her and Logan _weren’t_ linked. If he were to die tomorrow, would she even get a mention in the obit? And _yes_ that sounded crazy and self-absorbed, but—what would they call her? Girlfriend? Partner? Dog co-parent? Their names were both on the lease, so they were at least legally bound roommates.

Logan finished brushing his teeth, rinsed, and dropped the toothbrush into the cup with a flick of his fingers. Then he grabbed the floss, all the while watching Veronica’s reflection in the bathroom mirror as he waited for elaboration.

Veronica wished she _could_ elaborate. She wanted to explain that she didn’t care about a piece of paper—a piece of paper wouldn’t dictate how she felt or what she wanted—but _other_ people cared, and that made it difficult to ignore.

“Mars?” he asked, after another long moment of silence. When she still hadn’t found the words, he tossed the dental floss container up in the air, caught it, and walked over to her. “It’s okay, y’know.”

“I know,” she said, annoyed with herself more than anything. “I just...” _just what?_ Just wished that she could articulate the fact that in her entire life, four decades on this planet, she’d never been the first person to say _I love you_ in a relationship before, and even though she maintained that he’d coerced it out of her by cooking Greek food shirtless, it still felt like a big deal for her. But the outside world refused to _believe_ that it was a big deal until she put it in writing. “It’s just—hard to explain.”

“Yeah.” He reached her, brushed stray hairs back behind her ears. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere, Veronica. You’re it.” _Fuck._ Her chest felt strung tight. _How was he so much better at this?_ “So if you figure out how to explain it, let me know.”

Veronica leaned in, pressed her forehead against his collarbone. “Sounds good.” She inhaled deeply, breathed him in, and when she trusted her voice, said, “I can’t believe you rolled your eyes at my proposal.”

“You proposed while I was brushing my teeth.”

“I thought you hopeless romantics appreciated spontaneity.”

“You must have me mixed up with someone else.”

 

 Anyway, they went to the courthouse about a month after that.

 

 

 

Veronica is finishing her coffee when she hears Logan coming awake in the next room: his groaning and mumbling, then the creaking of the couch as he rouses himself. He ambles into the kitchen, wincing and stretching.

“I fucked up my back on that couch,” he gripes over a yawn, as he makes his way over to the counter.

“Did you check the cushions for peas, Your Highness?”

He throws her a look and starts rummaging through the cabinets. “Want some?”

“Hmm?”

“Coffee?”

“Oh. No, I just had a cup.”

Out of the side of her eye, she watches him fix his drink. He’s wearing grey sweat pants and a dark-red Henley t-shirt under his woolly green cable-knit. _Vacation Logan_ , Veronica thinks and it makes her smile.

She wonders sometimes, what it would have been like if they’d been together when he was still in the Navy, still facing regular deployments. He consults now, works remotely as often as not, so there’s a certain freedom to their schedules. She wonders how she would’ve coped with months and months of absences, Skype as their only link, the steady dread of imminent danger.

She wonders what would’ve happened if she got to know him ten years ago, when she was married to Jack. Especially towards the end, when things were visibly falling apart—

It’s a grim and depressing speculative route, so she detours away.

Imagines instead meeting him when they were in their twenties. Imagines meeting Logan when he was an impulsive hotshot pilot, and she was a reckless aspiring photojournalist, eager to prove herself. She’s seen pictures, and—though an older and wiser Veronica appreciates the soft lines just beginning to appear on him, the warmth and calm in the version of Logan that grins up at her from her tablet lock-screen—she understands herself well enough to know that the twenty-five-year-old Veronica would have been _all_ over the prior model. They would have driven each other crazy, undoubtedly, but would they have managed to stick with it? If they’d come together earlier, would they have tried their hands at the picket-fence fantasies too? Maybe some Logan-and-Veronica fucked up version of it, anyway—

Or, she wonders, if they’d met as teenagers... if her dad and mom hadn’t split up when Veronica was little, and she’d grown up in Neptune, like Logan did. Completely possible. Would he have liked the smart-mouthed middle school version of her? Would she have fallen for the round-cheeked, tanned and highlighted pretty boy she remembers seeing on magazine covers since childhood?

She imagines the years and years of each other that they never knew. But then again, she likes to tell him stories, and she likes to hear his. Maybe it all worked out as intended in the end.

 

 

Logan has his coffee now and he sits down at the kitchen table, kitty-corner from her. “I don’t feel like dishes,” he says, “Let’s go out to dinner.”

“Okay.”

“The pizza place or the nice place?”

“Mmm,” she considers it. “Pizza.”

“Okay.”

He turns and looks out the window at the winter wonderland view provided to them. Veronica thinks snow is still a bit of a novelty for Logan, too.

“How’s your back?” she asks, and he smiles softly.

“Sore. You fucked it up.”

He smirks at her, and Veronica tries to muster up a little remorse. “Sorry. You made a comfortable mattress.”

“Mmm.”

She tilts her head in a way she knows he finds frustratingly irresistible. “Still love me?”

He rolls his eyes. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Genuinely, I don't know how I feel about this. That being said, it's a tag/sequel to my Day 3 AU, which is more in line with my conventional style, so we'll see how I feel about it then!
> 
> P.S. New Hozier got me feeling all kinds of ways. Title is from "Nobody" which is a LoVe song if there ever was one, but this fic mood is all "Would That I."


End file.
